The owner of a piece of land at Bhoopasandra here — which the BJP has alleged Chief Minister Siddaramaiah got denotified and has appealed to the Governor for permission to prosecute him — on Tuesday claimed that the land measuring over 6 acres was not denotified at all and Mr. Siddaramaiah had no role in the transaction.
“We got the land through a legal battle in the High Court and the Supreme Court,” said K.V. Krishna Prasad, son of landowner K.V. Jayalakshmamma, and came down heavily on B.J. Puttaswamy, BJP leader who has alleged corruption in the transaction and sought the Governor’s permission for prosecuting the Chief Minister. Mr. Prasad said they had submitted a set of all documents to the Raj Bhavan.
The land dispute dates back to the 1960s, when in a civil dispute Syed Bashith and Syed Abdul Jabbar claimed ownership over the land. “The land was part of a preliminary notification by the Bangalore Development Authority in 1978 to develop RMV II Stage. The two contenders got it denotified in 1992 when S. Bangarappa was the Chief Minister. However, site allottees challenged the denotification, which was quashed in 2009,” Mr. Prasad said.
However, Mr. Bashith and Mr. Jabbar lost the civil suit on the title claims to Ms. Jayalakshmamma in the High Court and later in the Supreme Court. This gave the title rights of the land to Ms. Jayalakshmamma’s family. However, following the quashing of the denotification order, the land lapsed to the BDA.
“On October 28, 2015, the High Court declared that the scheme of RMV II Stage had lapsed, giving us the land,” Mr. Prasad explained.
The BDA filed an appeal against the High Court order before a larger Bench. However, the Additional Law Secretary gave an opinion to the BDA, based on which the authority not only withdrew the appeal but also gave an NOC to the landowner in June 2016. “Mr. Puttaswamy has alleged that this amounts to denotifying the said land, which is false,” Mr. Prasad said. He added that six farmers had got back their land in the same manner.
Mr. Prasad said they had not approched any politician, including Chief Minister, for relief.
